It is known that retail and wholesale stores, such as drug stores, grocery stores, discount stores, toy stores, and the like, require a large amount of shelving both to store product and to display the product to consumers. In displaying product, it is desirable for the product on the shelves to be situated toward the front of the shelf so that the product is visible and accessible to consumers. To accomplish this placement of product, known systems include the use of a pusher system to push the product toward the front of the shelf as the product at the front of the shelf is removed. Known systems also use dividing panels or dividers to separate product on the shelf to provide better organization of the product and to make the display of the product more appealing to consumers. Known merchandising systems that incorporate the use of pusher mechanisms can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,041,720 and 4,830,201 and application PCT/US02/15760, all of which are assigned to RTC Industries, Inc, and are incorporated herein by reference.
In the past, to display product of varying sizes, the pusher mechanism typically needed to be modified to properly push the product. For example, if the product had a narrow width configuration, often a narrower pusher panel was used to properly push the narrower product on the shelf. Similarly, if the product had a wide width configuration, a wider pusher panel was used to push the product toward the front of the shelf. Alternatively, multiple pusher panels were used to push the wide width product. The change in pusher panel width without commensurate changes to other dimensions of the pusher mechanism caused the pusher to bind or bend and not operate smoothly. To modify the pusher mechanism from a narrow panel to a wider panel typically required store personnel to change the pusher panels or, in the case of a narrow panel, attach a wider pusher panel over the narrow panel. Alternatively, and as indicated above, with some merchandising systems a second pusher mechanism was added to push the wider product. Such modifications to the merchandising systems were often time consuming and required the use of additional components not readily accessible nearby. Also, the additional components needed to be inventoried by the stores, thereby adding additional cost to the stores. In many instances, the additional components were misplaced or lost by the stores. In addition, the store personnel who often were required to make such modifications to the pusher mechanism, were sometimes incorrectly installing parts and components, which often led to the improper functioning of the merchandising system.
The present invention is directed at overcoming these known drawbacks and disadvantages with existing pusher mechanisms used with merchandising systems.